I've wondered about Rodin's famous sculpture. Is he engaged in deep thought or sitting around wasting time? And why isn't he wearing pants? I ask the same of myself. Here we comment on well, mostly politics. Or we may just sit! If you like it, tell a friend. If not, tell us, but please read the GROUND RULES before you do.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Nope, it wasn't Jeff Goldblum or even Sarah Palin ... But PETA weighs in regardless: "He isn't the Buddha, he's a human being, and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act."

The social networking site of much that is trivial and mundane on the internets has also become the most galvanizing tool of popular insurgencies and grass roots underground political movements EVER.

The reasons are clear: Twitter promotes the two “Ps” –- presence and participation -– as one blogger noted, like no other technological tool currently available to a networked population. It has enabled instant (and archived) communications, as the Iranian government shuts down the traditional means of communication, such as cell phone networks. Critical information tweets have continually fueled the organization and mobilization of the networked masses in anti-government protests.

Television, cell phone services, satellite communications -– yesterday’s technology -– are easier for the repressive Iranian regime to shut down, jam, censor, and control. But Iran’s traditional information blackout has had limited capacity to control the information flowing out of the country from tweets, Facebook, blogs, and YouTube postings. The ruling mullahs have been playing a losing whack-a-mole game with the protesters. No sooner do they suppress dissent in one area, that it pops up in another, and another, and another.

With the foreign media banned in Iran and ordered out of the country, and the local media, such as it is, acting as an instrument of state control and censorship, the message is getting out through thousands of citizen journalists. Young Iranians, educated university students, are at the forefront of this revolution. In this respect, at least, they are direct descendants of just about every revolutionary movement in history. The university in repressive societies has frequently been the town square, the focal point of revolution. But the advent of Twitter brings a new dimension to this common narrative of struggle. it's not so easy for repressive regimes to shut down the universities, identify the student leaders, and jail or make them "disappear."

In a remarkable admission of Twitter’s critical role as enabler of Iran’s popular revolt against its fixed election, the State Department requested that Twitter delay its scheduled maintenance until off hours in Iran, so that critical communications among insurgents would not be interrupted.

No one can predict with any certainty what will happen in Iran in the days, weeks, and months ahead. The Iranian ruling clerics have lost all legitimacy. Their options for state control are limited and point almost exclusively to a severe crackdown and dictatorial control of the population with the strong-arm backing of the Revolutionary Guard. The military, analysts note, are the real power behind the clerics and their puppet Ahmadinejad.

President Obama has taken the correct position. Expressing his concern over events in Iran, and his solidarity with the Iranian people, the President has studiously refused to take the bait of his strident, reactionary critics, Gramps "bomb-bomb Iran" McCain, Congressmen Cantor and Pence, and "Pal Joey" Lieberman. These imbeciles, and I do not lightly use this term, are criticizing the President for not standing with the protesters and against Iran's ruling clerics.

President Obama is absolutely correct in stating that the United States should not be "meddling" in Iran's elections. Considering our shared, chekered history, that's a no-brainer.

Anyone who knows the recent history of Iran, dating to the CIA-backed coup which deposed a democratically elected government and installed the Shah, would understand that for the United States to take sides in this delicate, evolving upheaval in Iran means THE KISS OF DEATH FOR THE PROTESTERS!

Nothing would restore Iranian legitimacy with its people more quickly than for the United States to once again inject itself in internal Iranian affairs. "See," the ruling mullahs will gleefully and with some justification tell their people, "the GREAT SATAN is behind these protests! Death to America!" (Yadayadayada ...)

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

A legislative aide to Tennessee State Sen. DIANE BLACK (R-Gallatin) sent out the following graphic from her state email depicting the 44 presidents. Look at the lower right corner space reserved for President Obama.

The legislative aide, SHERRI GOFORTH, told a local news blog, Nashville is Talking, “I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button. I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”

Her boss, DIANE BLACK, interviewed by CNN, refused to say:

1) That this employee was, should, or would be FIRED; and2) That the content of her employee’s email is RACIST.

Instead, she would only say that the email was “inappropriate,” and that her employee who has a “stellar 20-year record” of work for the state legislature was issued a “reprimand” per HR state policy for “improper use of email.”

EXCUSE ME?!

Exactly where does RACISM fall in the category of “improper use of email” to warrant IMMEDIATE TERMINATION from the state of Tennessee? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Tell us, Sen. Black, would this sanction be the same had your employee used state email to peddle pornography? Justice Potter Stewart’s famous reference, “I know it when I see it,” could just as easily apply to racism. But in Tennessee, racism apparently isn’t a serious offense. This is the state whose Repugnant (utterly and completely REPUGNANT) Party has a recent history of racist flyers and attack ads aimed at President Obama. There was the reference to his middle name, Hussein; there was the picture of Obama in African garb; and there was a flyer with Obama’s head on a crow. All were withdrawn. And now this.

Sen. Black’s constituents flocked to her support. “Get over it,” they told outraged critics. If Obama had been white, or if this was about W., they said, no one would raise an objection.

THEY JUST DON’T GET IT.

Did SHERRI GOFORTH really REGRET this, as her boss insists, or APOLOGIZE?

Here’s NIT’s Christian Grantham’s report of the GOFORTH interview:

I spoke with Sherri Goforth minutes ago to confirm she sent this email. She confirmed she had sent it and also said she had received a letter of reprimand from her superiors but said she will stay on the job.

When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, Goforth would only say she felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.

“I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Goforth told NIT. “I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back."

Sunday, June 14, 2009

In an interview with the New Yorker, CIA Director Leon Panetta said the Bush regime's Dark Lord "smells blood in the water" on national security issues, with reckless statements that the Obama Administration has made our country less safe without producing a single shred of evidence to support his allegations. The evidence, of course, is classified, and will not be declassified at Cheney's behest (and he knows it) simply because His Lordship is suddenly BFF with the FOIA.

"It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics," said Panetta. "When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics." Which begs the question: If Cheney knows something the DCI -- whose job it is to know about such things -- doesn't, then perhaps he ought to share with Leon, don't-cha think?

Watching the shameless, sometimes diverting and bizarre sideshow of the Cheneys' BIG LIES tour, the question that comes to mind is, does their party really want to run with this? I mean, who the hell made Liz Cheney an expert on national security issues and foreign policy? Aside from holding a low level position in the disgraced Bush-Cheney State Department, her sole qualification for making the political chattering rounds seems to be a penchant for shameless, pathological lying. Unlike her father, though, she knows little beyond the Cheney family lies talking points, making her a genuine trash talker of the worst kind. The problem is, she will lie with impunity on "friendly" territory such as Faux News and Andrea Mitchell Reports, that will give her free rein without contesting her lies. There's a lag time before the truth squads on KO, Rachel Maddow, Huff Post, Media Matters, and others, debunk the latest Cheney lies with video evidence, timelines, and quotes. An annoyance, to be sure; still, most viewers can see through the lies. Preaching crapaganda to the choir won't get the Right much past 35%.

Oh, lest I forget ... Boss Limbaugh, who may be headed for a rehab center after blaming the health care crisis on sports injuries, speaks for the Cheney lunatic fringe which, having exiled Colin Powell, is now the Repugnant Party mainstream -- pasty white guys with pacemakers and SS/Medicare eligibility. If Liz Cheney and Sarah Palin are the best women "leaders" the grand old, old, old white party has to offer ... well ... they're in big trouble. As in destined for extinction, like the Whigs.